Sweet Tooth
by Keep calm. We have hulk
Summary: '"Can I join you?" She looked at him with critical eyes, and he tried not to squirm. Honestly, he had no idea what he was doing, talking to her. She was probably contemplating killing him! It got to the point where he was thinking about turning and running when she shrugged neutrally and scooted over, asking nonchalantly, "Gummy worms or jelly beans, Valdez?"'


**Hello everyone~! I know you're all impatient for the next chapter of Life is Beautiful, and I promise I'm working on it, but this idea just hit me and I couldn't leave it alone. I'm actually a huge Leyna shipper (my favorite Leyna story being Meeting Leo by FieldOfPaperFlowers), so this is a big deal for me! My first ever Leyna fanfic! SQUEE~!**

**So, yeah, anyways, I won't waste any more of your time. Keep calm and read on, everyone!**

What a lot of people didn't know about New Rome's (in)famous Ice Queen of a praetor was that she had a major sweet tooth.

If you looked close, the signs were there – the mug of chocolate milk cupped in her hand in the morning, the jellybeans scattered hap-hazardously across maps on her war table, the half-empty sixteen ounce carton of ice cream on her kitchen counter – but most did not look close. In fact, most did not look at all; many chose to keep their distance. She was, after all, the Ice Queen. She did not do things by halves, especially not when it came to taking care of her home, even when it meant becoming icy and reserved and professional like she had. She was such a potent, powerful presence that most gave her a wide berth, and therefore did not notice her quirks.

Leo Valdez hadn't noticed either, but he sire as Hades wasn't keeping his distance.

The impish son of Hephaestus had become entranced by her. She was, after all, everything he looked for in a girl: beautiful, unique, and completely out of his league. He couldn't have found a better summary of his quirky turn-ons if he'd used a dictionary. Or a cookie cutter. Or possibly both. He couldn't help but notice their parallels, either. Where he was zany and unkempt, she was controlled and meticulous. When he laughed and smiled, she was silent and drew her mouth into a thin line. While he was loud and out-of-control, barely throwing together a plan at the last minute, she kept quiet and observed, planning and considering every possibility. She was everything he was not. Add all that to the fact that she had glared and threatened to kill him the first time they met, and you had one infatuated Valdez.

As much as he'd wanted to talk to her, however, the fire-wielder was not as bold as others thought him to be. He had tried and almost succeeded in getting out a word of greeting many times, but each and every one was ruined by sweaty palms and suddenly panicked thoughts. He bailed every time, and cursed under his breath. So, since his nerves refused to let him talk to her, he took instead to stationing himself near her, acting his usual self and glancing at her out of the corner of his eye to see if she ever looked up at him. She never did. But, despite all discouragements, he persisted in his eccentric way of getting her attention (though he actually wasn't sure he got it at all…).

That is, until one night gave him a better opportunity.

The war with Gaea was over, as it had been for two months now, and the celebratory festivities had yet to desist. Events had been held all across the country (and even out of it, on a few occasions), ranging from monster rodeos to demigod Olympic competitions to gold old fashioned feasts. All were hosted by one of the two camps or the Hunters of Artemis alternatively, each bringing a new element to the table that had everyone really appreciating being done with all the pain and death that came in the wake of battle. Leo had his hands full the first couple of weeks, having been forced to cart his fellow demigods around in the Argo II, but they had eventually created some kind of portal between the camps that allowed easier access. This, however, had created a whole new slew of problems for usually carefree jokester. Namely, he had no idea when to expect the camp to be suddenly empty or inexplicably packed. After all, he _did_ spend most of his time holed up in Bunker Nine.

Not that anyone really noticed… (He was _not_ bitter, he was _not_.)

It was one such night – one in which he found the camp to be bursting at the seams with people out of pretty much nowhere – when he felt he actually got the chance to _meet_ Reyna for the first time. He hadn't been looking for her, for a change. Well, he _had_ been, but when he didn't see her among the sea of demigods crowded into Camp Half-Blood's open-air dining area for the latest feast, he had simply assumed she had stayed back in New Rome, or something of the like. He saw that all of his close friends were getting pretty comfy with their significant other, so he turned and hightailed it outta there faster than Buford after a loose gear. He was heading back to Bunker Nine to work on a few projects in need of some serious oiling when he spotted Camp Jupiter's praetor sitting alone on the stoop of a half-finished cabin dedicated to some minor god or another, nursing various confectionary treats. So, yes, _technically_ he had been looking for her, but he hadn't been looking when he _actually _found her.

He had been stunned into motionlessness by her appearance. Not only was she beautiful, but she wasn't quite so armored as he was used to seeing her. Not literally, of course, she was still decked out in full battle regalia; golden plates hugged her body tightly, shimmering an glinting in the pale light with her every movement. She had cast her purple cloak aside, but she still looked very much the serious, untouchable force she always was. Except she wasn't. There was a certain weakness to her image, a slight flaw to her design. She was sitting alone on the porch of a building not quite built, and that somehow portrayed her as vulnerable. Her knees were splayed apart in opposite directions, not shooting away from each other solely because her ankles were crossed, hooked together at the ends of her legs. Her head was tilted back, letting her dark hair fall across her face to cast sharp shadows. One arm was crooked and tucked close, a pint of ice cream locked in place by her side. The other arm rested quietly beside her hip, its wrist arched back to let the end of a spoon knock against the wooden planks she was perched upon. On either side of her chosen resting place, a variety f sweet treats lay still in anticipation of being eaten. Her expression lacked its usual conviction, her dark eyes vacant as she stared into nothing.

Leo only remembered to blink when the armored girl took a scoop of frozen dairy from her pint and shoved it into her mouth. He wasn't used to seeing her like this at all.

Perhaps it was his startled and slightly incoherent state of mind that prompted him to break the silence. "Can I join you?" he asked, and immediately regretted it.

Her head snapped up with lightning speed and she focused the full intensity of her gaze on him. Her posture returned to its regal, rigid, far too formal state. The Greek half-blood could see her guards lock themselves up tightly, the doorway to the real Reyna slamming shut. With a single, impulsive string of words, he had obscured his of brief view of a _normal_ human being underneath the cold exterior.

She looked at him with critical eyes, and he tried not to squirm. He was unnerved by the way her eyes studied him – _all_ of him – so intently; he was used to being looked _through_, not _at_. Honestly, he had no idea what he was doing, talking to her. What business of his was she, anyways? She was _praetor_ for Zeus's sake! She had a camp to run, a camp which he had very nearly destroyed on his first visit. It had taken long enough for the rest of the Roman campers to forgive him for that; why would she, who was so invested in ensuring the safety of her people, ever do the same? She was probably contemplating killing him! (Not like she hadn't already tried, but whatever.)

It got to the point where he was thinking about turning and running when she shrugged neutrally and scooted over, asking nonchalantly, "Gummy worms or jelly beans, Valdez?"

It felt like hours before the question registered in his mind. A number of factors led to his would-be stupor, and not all of them had anything to do with her jarringly nonchalant inquiry (he was _not_ ogling her!). How did one respond to something like that? It wasn't every day the praetor of New Rome let you sit next to her on a half-finished porch and offered you candy. Come to think of it, Leo thought he might have had a dream like that once… Though he distinctly remembered not gaping at her like an idiot, or some kind of fish.

"W-W-What?" he spluttered. (He didn't recall babbling like a cretan in his dream either…) The sound of his own voice spurred into jerky, unsure motion, struggling not to trip and fall and make an even bigger fool of himself through his confusion-induced dizziness. "O-Oh, gummy worms, I guess."

He sat down beside her, cheeks flushed with shame and embarrassment. She didn't seem to notice; she just shoved an open pack of sour gummies in his face without looking at him. He took the bag with shaking hands, nearly jumping out of his skin when the very tips of their fingers brushed. He thought he saw her shoot him an unreadable glance over her spoon, but it was hard to tell in the dark, and he was a bit preoccupied stuttering apologies. She waved a dismissive hand, and his cheeks burned even hotter (he really wished they wouldn't – the last thing he needed was to catch on fire and blow it even worse) at her blatant disregard for his nervousness. He stuffed a few of the sweet, colorful worm-shaped candies in his mouth and forced himself to chew on them, but they tasted like leaves and grass on his tongue.

He willed himself to say something not stupid, begged his mind to give him something impressive to declare, something that might get her to notice him… "H-How do you know my name again?"

Gods, he wanted to slap himself.

She just looked at him mildly, a singular thin, dark eyebrow raised as she extracted the spoon he was quickly coming to see as a barrier between them from her mouth. She rolled her jaw slowly, then swallowed idly, taking her sweet time to respond. (Ah, get it? Sweet? 'Cause all the candy… Nevermind.) Eventually, her mouth opened and words poured out in a tone that told him she thought it was rather obvious, "I don't exactly turn a blind eye to someone who bombed my camp… Do you expect me to _not_ know who you are?"

He was now even more ashamed, but the sickening feeling of guilt was clawing viciously at his stomach, and he had to fight back the bile rising in his throat. As much as he knew it wasn't really his fault, he had done it anyways, and it tore him up inside thinking about it. The other campers had a hard time believing he hadn't meant to, and considering how long it took to convince them, he figured it would take a _lifetime_ to convince _her_ of all people that it had been a simple accident (or an elaborate plot, rather, set up by the forces of Gaea to drive a rift between the camps… Okay, not helping his case). He didn't even know if he _had_ a lifetime to convince her, and knowing what she was like, he probably didn't. In fact, after tonight, she would probably never speak to him again in civilized conversation, or _any_ conversation, really. She was, after all, the Ice Queen, and she didn't exactly live by the "forgive and forget" policy.

He hadn't realized he was sweating profusely until she quirked a brow at him and made a snarky comment about "running a marathon, or something". He only dimly registered it might have been an attempt at humor. He _was_, after all, sort of preoccupied with drowning and dying in his own thoughts.

"S-Sorry…" he stammered, his cheeks burning, only to find them burning even hotter when her brow shot up to meet her hairline.

"For what?" she huffed, as if she was completely baffled and exasperated by his apology.

That frustrated him a little bit, but the guilt and shame was still heavy on his shoulders. He got the feeling that his bones were melting under such pressure. His shock hardly registered in his brain, so he was quite sure it wasn't too apparent in his voice… Or at least he hoped so. "F-for your c-camp…" he elaborated, though some faint indignant part of his brain felt that he shouldn't have had to. (He strangled that part to death and left it to rot.)

"Oh." The word popped out of her mouth sharply, suddenly, and it was that spontaneity that initially caused him to flinch. When he realized she wasn't yelling, he looked at her confused, brows wrinkled together and brown eyes twitching as they tried to decide whether to stretch wide or squint. The one simple word tumbled form her lips in a way that made it sound as if the thought had just occurred to her… Which made that indignant voice in his head that he had brutally murdered only moments before miraculously revive itself and start interrogating Camp Jupiter's praetor viciously. _Oh?_ What in _Tartarus_ was '_oh_' supposed to mean?! _She_ was the one for bringing up the whole 'Leo Destroyed Camp Jupiter' story! And when he apologized, all she had to say was _oh_?!

…What the Hades?

He realized too late that some of his thoughts must have tumbled out his mouth, because her raised brows came down and her mouth twisted into something that was probably supposed to be some mutant form of a smile but instead looked more like a grimace.

"I'm aware you've done something unforgiveable," she stated, and he couldn't help but flinch at the way he was sure her tone was going to be patronizing… Only it wasn't. He blinked owlishly, surprised to find her tone almost _soothing_. (He sort of wanted to flinch at that too just because it was so _alien_ to what she always seemed to be like, but it was kind of really nice, so he didn't.) "But my people – the ones affected, mostly – seem to forgive you, and a great many campers – both Greek and Roman – seem to trust you. To hate you as I came to in the past would be disrespectful. Both of their losses and of mine."

He nodded hastily, not wanting to drag out such an uncomfortable and obviously sensitive topic any longer, turning away to stare with a mixture of despondency and agitation into his half-empty back of sour gummy worms.

Then he stopped, because he realized what she'd actually said.

_Both of their losses and of mine._ That didn't sound right. Sure, Leo thought, she must have been beyond upset that her subjects/citizens/people/whatever-you-want-to-call-them were hurt, but her _losses_? What exactly did she mean by that? She didn't really have friends, she was always the cold, stoic leader of New Rome, always the Ice Queen, ever frosty and professional and distant; she didn't really seem like the bleeding heart type… But then Leo started to wonder why that was.

She was serious, yes, but maybe that was because she hadn't been, and something bad had happened. She was stoic, sure, but maybe that was because something had happened that made her afraid to show emotion. She was frosty, certainly, but maybe that was because the last time she welcomed someone into her life, they had shattered it around her, left her to pick up the pieces. She was professional, of course, but maybe that was because the thought that if she wasn't, she would lose control of every carefully constructed plan, every false pretense that she kept firmly in place to keep herself together. And she was distant, absolutely, more distant than anyone he had ever met (or would meet, he thought), but maybe that was because she had let people in before, because she had gotten close before, because she used to trust people, but every single one of them had let her down, let her break, let her shatter and fall apart and feel the aching _lostness_ that echoed through every fiber of her being just below the surface. Maybe.

And when he went still, stopped himself in the middle of munching on a mouthful of gummies and turned to look at her head on, not hiding and not shrinking from the raised eyebrow and challenging gaze he was met with, he saw it. He saw the armor that she wore like a second skin, saw the faint but jagged edges where it ended and she began, saw the vulnerability, the fragility beneath that seemingly unbreakable façade. He saw _Reyna_ (in all of her cold, icy glory), not the Ice Queen, not the praetor of New Rome, not even as the scary-but-quite-frankly-hot girl who had tried to kill him not so long ago; he saw her as she was, as a whole, the sum of her parts, everything she was, had been, and ever would be. He swallowed his gummies thickly, nearly choking on the soft, sweet candy, but refusing to look away from the girl in front of him. He didn't think he would ever look away again.

Because she was like him: lost and alone and just trying to make it through each day, running from the past and praying their feet wouldn't fail them now, not when they didn't want to look back, not ever.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

"So, you've got a thing for sweets, huh?"

**It's doooooooone!**

**I hope all the people who ship Leyna enjoyed this, and even the people who don't! It was a thrill to write, and Leo is such a nervous little cutie pie in this, asdfghjk. Seriously, I could **_**die**_**.**

**Anywhatsit, I hope you all enjoyed!**

**R&R**

**- Vamp.**


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